Page 133 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

118 Chapter 6

As partial, partisan, and often speculative stories that raise more questions than
they answer, leak-based reports, unlike well-researched investigations, generate nar-
rative tension as rival outlets rush to fill these gaps with their own coverage. Even
though this follow-up may not promote reform or correction, it still serves to keep
the story alive and stoke public outrage, or at least interest. A key internal dynamic in
Baligate (and later election scandals) was this building of narrative tension, especially
acute as evidence of malfeasance emerged piece by piece through strategic leaks and
the partisan pursuit of revenge.
Tempo ’s exposé of fraud in Sulawesi was, by contrast, a self-contained narrative.
Even when the requisite inquiry by Panwaspus provided corroboration, the story still
lacked tension, and thus momentum. The narrative tension in Baligate, by contrast,
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seemed escalating and endless as mysteries unfolded, attention grew, and reporters
cultivated new sources.
In sum, the Baligate revelations were in no way more spectacular than the findings
of Tempo ’s exposé. But the peculiar journalistic genre that carried them, the insider
leak, had embedded within it internal imperatives that drove news outlets to follow it
doggedly to its denouement, regardless of political consequences.

When Indonesia’s newly elected parliament met in October 1999, the 695 delegates,
representing dozens of political parties, were deciding not only the outcome of the
presidential election but also the country’s political future. The advent of enduring
democracy in Indonesia required, symbolically and substantially, that the Golkar party

lose the presidency for the first time in three decades. If Golkar had retained the
executive, the June elections would not have been the start of genuine democracy, but
simply the seventh in a succession of rigged electoral rituals ending with Golkar back
in power—legitimacy affi rmed, collusive pacts renewed.
Through the confluence of new political laws and Golkar’s skillful manipulation
of the electoral process, the balance of parties in parliament left the country poised
for just such a scenario. This manipulation and the broad complicity of other actors,
including much of the media, had effectively perpetuated the engineered outcomes of
the Suharto era.
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After a year of revolution and reform, Indonesia’s political process seemed, on the
surface, little changed. Thousands of demonstrators had filled the capital streets. A
powerful autocrat had fallen from power. The country had held its first open elections
in more than forty years. Yet Golkar was set to retain control of the presidency. Not
even solid investigative reporting revealing major electoral fraud had slowed this tra-
jectory. But just weeks before Habibie’s expected triumph, the media-driven Baligate
scandal broke the ruling party’s hold on power. More critically, it began to unravel the
fabric of collusion underlying Golkar’s careful negotiations with other political parties
who, as later revelations showed, had also reaped the rewards of embezzlement and
electoral manipulation.
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The media’s overall influence in this period was complex, even contradictory,
reflecting this sector’s dual character as both self-interested and civic-minded in
checking the power of other players. Media outlets profited from sales and advertising
revenues through sensational coverage, whether of intraelite backstabbing or seri-
ous political controversy. Even at the peak of media independence during the Bank
Bali scandal, journalistic commentary on the push for a full investigation of the case
was mixed. Nevertheless, at critical junctures, members of the media, individually
and collectively, appeared to be self-consciously forcing accountability on officials and